Yeshiva University Library is fortunate to own a remnant of the Cairo Genizah, a small paper fragment with a portion of ”LeYoshev Tehilot, ” a piyyut recited on Yom Kippur. The fragment is legible, and remarkably well preserved, especially considering its age and its travels. The author of the piyyut was the renowned liturgical poet, Eleazar Kallir, who lived in the Land of Israel in the late sixth or early seventh century.  The YU fragment probably dates to  11th century, five centuries after it was originally composed. LeYoshev Tehilot, and many of Kallir’s other piyyutim are preserved in the liturgy and still recited today, despite Abrahm Ibn Ezra’s jeremiad against Kallir’s piyyutim,  and Ibn Ezra’s general disdain for the genre. Nonetheless, Kallir’s additions to the liturgy of the Yamim Noraim, the High Holy Days, must have been popular and spoken to the people, since the Genizah yielded a plethora of fragments of Kallir’s  poetry, and they have been part of the liturgy for about fifteen centuries!

The fragment remained in the Cairo Genizah until the discovery of the Genizah by European travelers and scholars, who made pilgrimages to Cairo to study and gather the fragile fragments.  One notable visitor was Solomon Schechter, who was a  lecturer in Talmud at Cambridge University at the time.  Armed with an introduction from the Chief Rabbi of England, Hermann Adler, to the Chief Rabbi of Cairo, Aaron Raphael Bensimon, Schechter made his way to Egypt to excavate the Genizah and select portions for Cambridge.

Our fragment came to the library as part of the collection of Rabbi Dr.  Louis Lewin, a rabbi, scholar, and collector, who served as  a rabbi the areas of Posen and Silesia. Scholars of day would frequently exchange original documents in order to study and discuss them. Louis Lewin (1868-1941) moved to Bnai Brak in about 1940. His son Daniel transferred the collection to London where it survived the Blitz and the Second World War.  Yeshiva University purchased the collection – it was packed in trunks in London – and arrived at YU in 1948.

The Genizah fragment was one of the treasures unearthed in the trunks, but the collection yielded more: two postcards written by Solomon Schechter during his sojourn in Egypt while he worked on the Genizah. These postcards, one in Hebrew and one in German, sent to his friend and colleague, Dr. [Marcus] Brann in Breslau, provide a glimpse of Schechter's  experience.

“For our many sins [bav"h – בעו"ה] there is no kosher hotel here and I am sick of the local food. I am busy with mitzvot (good deeds) almost all day, and please God, I will be successful. Please tell me, my friend, what is the cost of a Vilna Shas [Talmud] on excellent paper, can you purchase it for me, and what is the cost of sending it to Egypt?  …   Last Sabbath I went to see the Rambam Synagogue, and in contrast, the synagogue of the Karaites.” 

In the second postcard, Schechter again requested books; he asked Brann to send two copies of Ketuvim Aharonim to Grand Rabbi Bensimon in Cairo as soon as possible. Schechter assured Brann that his brother-in-law would pay for everything. Presumably expressions of friendship and gifts of books helped Schechter secure access to the Genizah.

Thanks to the combined efforts of intrepid explorers a century ago and modern technology, today’s students of the Genizah are able to sit comfortably at computers and virtually weave together document scraps from repositories all over the world. 

For more information on Yeshiva University’s Genizah fragment, see the blog post on the Cambridge University Library site, “Fragment of the Month.” 

Posted by Shulamith Z. Berger